What's your biggest factor in picking cruise line/ship?

[Mommabear2Five]

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer *I am a Carnival Cheerleader and I love my red and blue pom poms*. :o

 

Now that that's out of the way, here is my question:

 

What factors are involved when you are choosing what line to sail or choosing your ship?

 

For me, I would love to choose Carnival every time and I would sail on a Fantasy class ship that spent at lease 1 day at sea and 1 day at HMC. That being said, it doesn't always work out that way. I get 5 weeks paid vacation every year - yep, 5 - but it's very hard for me to get more than a week off at one time (including my regular days off) and it's rare that I know more than 3 months out that I have approved time for vacation. I can usually manage a long weekend every other month.

 

So, for us, it's what's available when I have the time off. (I've booked a few cruises 6+ months out, but I usually have to cancel them before final payment and roll my deposit to another one because I cannot get the approval for vacation.) Most of the time, we have only 3 options to choose from between Carnival and Royal, and at that point we go with whoever is going to keep us on board the longest for the best price. And it's not always my fun ship...

 

Am I alone in this?

Edited March 26, 2016 by Mommabear2Five

[LMaxwell]

My top 3 considerations in no particular order are itinerary, ship, and price. I look at Princess, RCI, Carnival, NCL, MSC.

[Raxter54]

First is cost, and then port of departure, then itinerary. We can't afford to fly AND cruise, so we have to drive to port. That's why our first two cruises have been out of NOLA, on RCI first, and then Carnival (since RCI left). And I am lucky enough to have a job where I can plan cruises up to a year in advance...

 

 

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[Micahs Grandad]

These days Carnival for Caribbean and Princess for the rest of the world.

 

Than we look at when we want to go and what is available.

[Rosethorn40]

First: Where do I want to Go? Caribbean, Europe, Someplace new

 

Second: Cruise Line-I will check HAL, Princess, Carnival, and just recently added Celebrity to the mix. (If a river cruise it 's Viking all the way).

 

Third: Price-Who is going to give me the best value

 

Fourth: Ship-Caribbean I want an adult only area to relax, pools, port intensive I want a thermal suite to sooth aching bones and muscles

[sparks1093]

Price and itinerary are closely related. We will basically decide where we want to go and then look at who is going there for the best price. CCL has won the battle twice in a row lately.

[Jana60]

Carnival has previously been my favorite because there were lots of options for different entertainment in the evening that I could do even with Mobility impairment however in recent years they have been deteriorating in the entertainment Department. It's almost impossible to get a place to sit in the comedy club and if you can't sit down you can't go when you have rheumatoid arthritis. They also have cut back on all their other entertainment including on the show budgets so the shows are now much lower quality. The service is also greatly deteriorated. On my cruises in February when I was back to back to back I observed that it was almost impossible to get a drink unless you went to the bar and waited at least 5 to 10 minutes. Since they had only one waiter per public area it was impossible to get served a drink while sitting down at the table. I ordered room service three times and only received it once and that one time it took 45 minutes. Lastly and probably most important to me is that they have cut back on the amount of karaoke they have and on the song Choices for karaoke. I went on a Norwegian cruise this month and had not sailed with Norwegian for about 6 years. They had waiters in their public areas who brought drinks promptly even when you were on their drinks program. Even when I went to the bar and ordered a drink if the bartender was unable to give it to me immediately she told me just go sit down and I'll bring it to you. The rooms have a little wheel on the door that you turn and it either says do not disturb, make up my room, or welcome. There is no question of whether you can have your room serviced once or twice a day. Anytime you turned that wheel to make up my room whether it was once a day or 10 times a day the room Steward came and cleaned the room. The entertainment was fantastic and the shows of high quality and accompanied by a large band. There were also live bands at multiple locations throughout the ship. The one negative was the length of karaoke in the evenings which was only about 2-3 hours in length so it was sometimes difficult to get there to sing if you were also going to the show. Also their song selection was poor. The other negative Norwegian as compared to Carnival was the room size. The bathroom was so small I could hardly fit in the little cubby where the toilet was. I could not fit between the bed and the vanity without turning sideways. I don't even know why they put a stool under the vanity since it was impossible to pull it out. We ended up taking that stool out on the balcony to put our feet upon. One positive of the room was that they have a coffee pot and all of the materials to make coffee in the room so you can have a pot of coffee and drink it on your balcony anytime you please without waiting for room service. I have been a carnival cheerleader in the past but I think this is changing since I even found myself thinking about selling my stock and buying stock with Norwegian so I can get their onboard credit.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Jana60

[Keith1010]

We have found that over the years the factors that determined this changed over time.

 

Early on when we cruised it was affordability and schedule for the itinerary we desired.

 

Over time other factors included more exotic itineraries, and the amenities provided by the cruise line.

 

As we have gotten older our preferences do change.

 

Keith

[Cruisegirl6]

For us...my daughter and her bf (adults), my father in law (senior) and my other half and I at age 53:

 

First our saying is you get what you pay for and we feel we get better and more on RC (no red flagging me its how we feel as the OP asked a question). We find the food on RC especially in the buffets to exceed over Carnival in quality and selection....more choices....we also stay up late usually till 2am so we like to get something late night to eat...Carnival only offers pizza past midnight where RC offers mini sandwiches, salads, cookies, muffins, pizza along with other items.....balconies are larger on RC.....service is always excellent where Carnival its always a hit or miss, but we find Carnivals bartenders more friendlier and better/faster service. We prefer the casino on Carnival over RC. We don't swim but if we did we must have to choose RC larger better nicer pools....love RC ice show and the shows on RC are much much better quality, we never go to the shows on Carnival just too cheesy for us but Carnival does offer that live rock n roll band which we enjoy listening to and they also have better comedy shows.

 

With this being said, for us, our main cruise for the year usually is a RC ship...and Carnival is our 2 or 3 cruise of the year...mainly because the prices are less and we tend to go on 5 night cruises as our extra yearly cruises most of the time. Last year our main cruise was 8 night southern caribbean on Carnival because we went for the itinerary (which 90% of the time we don't care about...been on 61 cruises seen it and done it all and we feel if we are going for a port its just best to go on a land based vacation to experience the island in entirety)..... but we did this cruise for the ports and found ourselves going back for a 9 day trip to Aruba two months later and booking up this year too! lol

 

It all depends on what you want in your cruise and what is important, but since you have difficulty getting off from work you have to do it right and for me its a RC cruise. on one of the newer/larger ships.

 

My other half gets unlimited vacation time (he works for a huge company for the past 23 years) but for him, going more than a week he comes back to work and has so much to do because of his position and has to lets say repair issues that happened when he was away. He generally can get two weeks time each year with an extra day or two, but the other trips we take are generally 5 nights because of the same reason you have and many times we book just two months out...so I understand where your coming from and have to say, when you can get the time to get away, whatever the amount days you get just pick your best choice. By the way, we prefer more sea days we would love going to no ports and generally we don't get off at ports any longer perhaps just one in a cruise just to have a lunch somewhere else than on the ship.

[Mommabear2Five]

 

My other half gets unlimited vacation time (he works for a huge company for the past 23 years) but for him, going more than a week he comes back to work and has so much to do because of his position and has to lets say repair issues that happened when he was away. He generally can get two weeks time each year with an extra day or two, but the other trips we take are generally 5 nights because of the same reason you have and many times we book just two months out...so I understand where your coming from and have to say, when you can get the time to get away, whatever the amount days you get just pick your best choice. By the way, we prefer more sea days we would love going to no ports and generally we don't get off at ports any longer perhaps just one in a cruise just to have a lunch somewhere else than on the ship.

 

This is an issue for me as well, if I take too long off, catching back up at work is stressful.

 

Thanks everyone!

[nednrom]

Vacation time is not a problem for us, both my husband and I at 50 yo have 5 weeks of vacation that we can use as we like. We normally split it with cruise and land beach vacation preferring to drivable areas.

 

In terms of cruise, we have in the past preferred RC for quality of food and service and past guest benefits as well as the different activities onboard. We found that on the last 2 RC cruises, service, food has declined.

 

We selected carnival for our last cruise and our next one. We found the service on the conquest to be impeccable, and enjoyed the different itinerary. We loved HMC over Labadi and found Serenity or adult pool rules enforced. The price for the holiday cruise was much less than RC.

 

We have decided that after our carnival cruise in May, we will try NCL. Unless it's some very special itinerary or special price we won't return to RC.

[drgonzogoo]

I look for cheap drinks, cheap Balconies and cheap women!! Those are my deciding factors..... not necessarily in that order:cool:

[cv322]

1. Embarkation port - I prefer to leave from NY..but will drive to Baltimore or Boston...I prefer not to fly to pick up a ship.

2. Number of days for the cruise - I prefer a minimum of 10 days

3. I have no #3 lol...I don't care where I'm going...I can do the same itinerary countless times & it doesn't bother me - for me ;), the destination is the ship!

 

I'm platinum with Carnival, but have become more in love with (and now am platinum with) NCL over the last 3 years because they've had the Breakaway AND the Gem ported in NY all year long!

[MaiTaiMary]

i look for cheap drinks, cheap balconies and cheap women!! Those are my deciding factors..... Not necessarily in that order:cool:

 

lol!:d

[bakersdozen12]

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer *I am a Carnival Cheerleader and I love my red and blue pom poms*. :o

 

You would think by the tickers in my signature that I am a "Carnival cheerleader" as well, but while I did love my first cruise (which happens to have been on Carnival), it really is just a coincidence that all of the other cruises I have booked are on Carnival.

 

My first cruise, as well as the cruise I am going on this November, are group cruises so I didn't pick the cruise line or the interaries.

 

As far as the other cruises are concerned, I didn't pick them for the line or the ship. I always have a specific time of year that I can travel, as well as a specific time within each month that I can schedule my vacations (I work in accounting so I have to schedule them around month-end close).

 

So for each and every one I had a certain time period to schedule something, and when I looked at what was available, it just happened that in each case Carnival offered the best itinerary (based on where I want to travel to) for the best price.

 

Since I book based on ports, I think that eventually I will probably have to branch out to other cruise lines, as it seems that Carnival tends to offer the same itineraries over and over again. Plus, at some point I really do want to see what is out there with other lines, and how they compare to Carnival.

Edited March 26, 2016 by bakersdozen12

[freedomcruiser891]

Living in Texas we don't have a whole lot of options. Can't go during November December January so we can never cruise Disney which stinks! And between carnival and Royal Caribbean carnival always wins because of price and ship quality. Galveston has a nice set of ships though so we're not complaining a bit. We might try princess out of Houston sometime but price differences never seem to be worth it as we're just looking to get away. Don't care where we go or who with we just want to get away [emoji1]

[S.S.Oceanlover]

1. ship

2.entertainment

3.itinerary

 

Bill

[bakersdozen12]

Living in Texas we don't have a whole lot of options.

 

 

Actually, you technically always have the option of flying to a port. I live in NH and could easily drive to the ports in Boston, NYC, or even Baltimore, but that would severely reduce my choices for itineraries. So I choose to fly to other ports.

 

 

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[deliver42]

Number 1 is price. I've been to just about all the major islands, so it would probably be repartition anyway. I have 2 cruises booked on MSC for that reason. In May we have a balcony for $1400.00 for 2, and $84.00 for a drink pkg. In May of 2018, I've booked the brand new Seaside inside cabin Yacht Club for $2900.00, which includes almost anything you can want, including all drinks in the Yacht Club area, and your own restaurant and butler.For May of 2017, Alaska on Princess because that's the only way to go, and Dec of 2017, Celebrity for a 9 night Caribbean at a reasonable price. Then last, in March of 2018, the Magic, again because of price, and that it has just come out of dry dock. As you can tell, I'm not loyal to anyone, but my RCCL status got me the same on MSC and Celebrity. That's something that Carnival doesn't do between lines.

[Micahs Grandad]

This is an issue for me as well, if I take too long off, catching back up at work is stressful.

 

Thanks everyone!

 

This is why I get internet plan on every cruise to make catchup easier when we get back

[nwo4life]

The most important is a port that I'm willing to drive to(8 hours or less).

[beachbum53]

My top 3 considerations in no particular order are itinerary, ship, and price. I look at Princess, RCI, Carnival, NCL, MSC.

 

This is about the same for us, except we don't usually consider MSC. Usually it comes down to choosing between Carnival and RCCL. On a 7 day Caribbean cruise, Carnival will typically have 4 ports to visit and 2 days at sea. RCCL will have 3 ports and 3 days at sea, and usually at a higher price. We haven't ruled out RCCL altogether. I know some day we'll go on another RCCL cruise. For right now, we're happy with Carnival.

[Cruisegirl6]

Micahs Grandad- The whole reason for a vacation is to get away from it all and the reason why we love cruises because his work doesn't know he gets internet (he does check his work emails only). Trust me, on our land based vacations he is always working, I never forget we flew to Vegas last year and the moment we stepped off the plane his phone was ringing...needless to say the entire time in the cab, check in at the hotel, getting a bite to eat and drink he was on that same work call...still went on for hours while sitting at the slot machine until late at night. He always gets calls on land based trips so we love our cruises and its a vacation why work...work isn't going anywhere so he gets back home and has more work to catch up but at least he had a real vacation which is away from work.

[OCruisers]

For longer cruises the cruise line is extremely important to us.

For a 7 day cruise we are more flexible.

[Drose716]

I'm about to take my 7th cruise- all Carnival. I always check other lines, but Carnival has just always come out with the best price for my itinerary. Royal was a very real contender 3 cruises ago & NCL for the last. But both timesI just preferred CCLs itinerary a little more.

 

I'm a single mom & I love to travel as much as I can. To achieve that, price has to be a factor. I've found other lines to have good deals also, but usually for the same price the itinerary on Carnival is more to my liking. Our upcoming 6 night will be my first cruise over 5 nights. Carnival has the most options for shorter itineraries.

 

My requirements are price first probably then itinerary. It's hard now to hit all new ports so I require at least 1 new port on each cruise. My next 2/3 are new. The next factor is ship. I will sail Fantasy class if the fit is correct, but I prefer larger. And I prefer a ship I haven't sailed before. Cruise line is the last factor. It's really a non-factor.

 

I would like to try one of the monster ships with the kids one day just to see how it is.

Edited March 26, 2016 by Drose716